Yarncrafting Costumes: Designing a Cleopatra Headpiece

In this guest post by Gali Beeri, she walks us through the design process for her Cleopatra headpiece. It’s certainly fit for a queen!

With Halloween fast approaching, we would like to share our own take on costuming – which involves yarncrafting, of course!

Last time around I shared my winged superhero costume. It probably comes as no surprise that Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. But why limit myself to getting in costume just once a year? Throughout college my friends would often throw “theme parties”, which provided an excellent excuse for costuming and helped shape my love of “playing dress-up” as an adult. Now well into my 30s, I’ve found more communities that love doing the same and attend costume events regularly.

To kick off the design process for my next costume party, I explored ideas that suited the ancient Egypt-influenced theme. Ultimately I decided to knit a snake headpiece.

Drawing inspiration from images of Cleopatra headdresses, I started sketching out a design I thought would translate well to knitted fabric. Searching through the yarn at the Lion Brand Yarn Studio, I found that once again Vanna’s Glamour came to the rescue for my costuming needs. I’m so drawn to the sparkle! The Bronze colorway fit both the theme and my complexion nicely.

I cast on for a narrow tube knit in the round, and then created the cobra shape by increasing on either side to the widest point of the head. Then I decreased on either side until I reached the tip of the snake’s mouth. To create the forked tongue, I switched to red yarn (LB Collection Superwash Merino in Cherry). I embroidered eyes and nostrils using scraps of black yarn.

Next up, I had to figure out how to place the snake on my head! That’s where my narrow tube at the base of the snake’s head came in handy – it was just big enough for a pipe cleaner to fit. This held the snake head upright, and also made it easier to secure the piece to a headband. I wrapped the headband with more bronze yarn. To add interest, I bent gold sparkly pipe cleaners into zigzag shapes and affixed them to the headband as well.

With the headpiece complete, it was time to put together the rest of my costume. I shopped around and found a gold and black sequined skirt. This shaped my color palette for the ensemble, and so I added a black top and created a necklace pile from my gold and glam sparkly necklaces. Weaving a gold ribbon through my braid and adding another to my hair, along with a sequined flower, added even more glam to the look. Gold glitter on my eyes was the final touch to bring it all together.

Here’s my finished costume!